Friday Night Rivalry, and Playoff Implications, at West Point
Friday Night Rivalry, and Playoff Implications, at West Point
The Battle for New York State is back on this weekend as St. Bonaventure faces Army Friday night at West Point.
Yes this is a game between the top two college rugby programs in the Empire State, but it’s also a game that carries some significance for the teams in terms of their respective playoff prospects.
With Army currently at 3-1 in-conference and in with a chance to be 6-1 or at least 5-2, they are in a much, much stronger position to be a D1A playoff team in the spring compared to 2023-24. But beating St. Bonaventure is a big part of that.
St. Bonaventure is “only” 2-1 and won one of those games 11-10, and they are “only” 6th in Rugby East, but they are nicely positioned to be in the NCR D1 playoffs. They’d be more nicely positioned if they win on Friday.
Army’s Howie Heller got the CRAA / 8x8 Sports Player of the Week award after a multi-try effort over Penn State. Heller is now 3rd in the Rugby East in points scored. Benji Kemp, Chance Loudenback, and Jack Reed all have been important finishers for the Black Knights.
“Thus far this fall we’ve been reasonably happy with our progression,” said Head Coach Matt Sherman. “Outside of one performance where we felt we played well short of our capacity, we’ve been steadily improving.”
That would be their 32-5 loss to Navy. Not a good game in which to fall short of your own expectations, but West Point learned from that.
“As we continue on this fall and in particular this week, our goal is to become more consistent in building the identity we hope to play with for a full 80 minutes. I think if we can find that consistency, there’s a really strong team within us,” said Sherman.
For St. Bonaventure, they are 2-1 in the Rugby East with a competitive loss to Navy, that wild 11-10 win over Walsh which came thanks to a kick chargedown, and a 31-17 win over a tough (if winless) Penn State.
New Head Coach Danny Neighbour has a new staff and so it’s been an adjustment. In terms of how he does business compared to previous Head Coach Tui Osborne, Neighbour said he hasn’t changed a ton.
“Not massive changes in the way we go about our everyday approach to our culture and play,” said Neighbour. “Really exciting start to the year though and lots of great energy across both teams. We are looking for better decision making from us on attack. We didn’t execute our game plan against Walsh and it almost cost us the game.”
Bonnies does have weapons, although we didn’t really see them against Walsh.
“We played in to their hands by attacking the interior too much,” said Neighbour. “Moving forward we’ll look to be less one dimensional.”
A lot of that depends on doing better in the breakdown, with better carries and better ball presentation.
Bonnies has seen some breakout players. Props Mike Sears and Tanya Takaendisa were new to the position coming in to preseason but have been outstanding and taken on the job with enthusiasm. In the backs, the center pairing of Eddie Nelson and Manu Taula is one to watch as they have defended well and when they go forward, the team goes forward.
St. Bonaventure at Army is at West Point's Anderson Rugby Complex, Friday night. Kickoff is 7PM.
